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In the transformation of this Edwardian home, interior designer Alyssa Owens proves you don’t need to change the structure of a house to reinvent its interior.
‘That was really what made the project so exciting: we got to see how far a home could shift without touching a wall,’ Alyssa says.
Through careful selection of colour, furniture, lighting, art and textiles, Alyssa managed to retain all the beloved heritage features of the Preston home — high ceilings, original mouldings, and timber floors — while injecting the space with much-needed colour and personality.
For this, she drew on her clients’ Italian roots, layering iconic Italian designs like a vintage Murano chandelier, red Gaetano Pesce vase, and green Gubi pendants, with a rich colour palette of earthy red, mulberry, and terracotta.
She even went so far as to source artwork from Sicilian-Australian artist Nunzio Miano to sit gracefully in the living room.
‘The project name “Amaro Rosso” came naturally from the same place. Italian bitters have that quality of being complex and warm with a little edge, which felt exactly right,’ Alyssa explains.
While Alyssa’s initial impulse was to use muted tones in the master bedroom, homeowners Kiara and Sam Pecenko pushed her to experiment with a bold injection of brick-red, a decision that quickly turned the room into one of Alyssa’s favourites.
‘Walking into a room with that depth of colour and having it feel enveloping rather than confronting feels great. Knowing it came from the clients pushing me somewhere I hadn’t initially gone makes it better,’ Alyssa says.
The young family now fully adore their newly transformed home. ‘We loved how her use of colour and texture made the spaces she designed feel really considered and interesting, but at the same time lived in and real,’ Kiara says.
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